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FISA Court Extends Section 215 Bulk Surveillance For 90 Days
Trailrunner7 notes that the bulk telephone collection program was just extended another 90 days. "The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has authorized a 90-day extension to the Section 215 bulk telephone collection program used by the National Security Agency, giving the agency through the end of February to run the program in the absence of legislation establishing a new authority.
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that the administration had applied for a 90-day extension to the existing Section 215 authority, and that the FISC had approved the request, extending the authority through Feb. 27.
'The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January,' a statement from the Office of the DNI and the Office of the Attorney General said."
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that the administration had applied for a 90-day extension to the existing Section 215 authority, and that the FISC had approved the request, extending the authority through Feb. 27.
'The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January,' a statement from the Office of the DNI and the Office of the Attorney General said."
Let me clarify, as the two current posts indicate a misunderstanding. Currently, the law authorizing the snooping is set to expire in June 2015. Under that law, NSA must get court approval or any wiretaps, and those approvals can't last longer than 90 days. The court has been approving "spy on everyone" each 90 days.
Obama asked Congress to renew the law rather than letting it expire in June, but change it in a couple of ways:
Make the authorization permanent rather than requiring re-approval every 90 days
Add some smokescreen language to say the dragnet isn't allowed under section 215, it has to be done under a different section.
The Senate voted 58-42 to not extend the law as Obama asked, so currently the snooping must stop by June, when the law authorizing it expires.
Only the current 90-day "warrant" expired, renewing that is standard operating procedure. The big deadline is June, when the whole program will have to stop if Congress doesn't re-authorize it.
Democrats in Congress want to move the program around, so they can say they got rid of the section 215 authorization. Republicans have refused to do that, some like Paul want to let the whole thing expire. Others say the Democrat smokescreen plan only makes it harder to perform legitimate national security activities, without actually doing anything good for privacy.
Really? Congress had no part? You're going with that, when TFA cites Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which was passed by Congress in October 2001? I mean, sure, rage against the machine, but don't flail about wildly because you're too stupid to read up on the issue. I'm pissed off about the dragnet spying too, but at least I understand that their power wasn't pulled out of thin air. The keys to their power: they don't need probably cause for a warrant, warrants can be extended indefinitely, and they can access all electronic communications(which was stated that way intentionally to case the widest net. they cover everything from telegraphs to the latest radios and fiber technologies).